The symptoms of acromegaly may occur subtly over a period of years, but they can be quite alarming.
Imagine how terrifying it would be if your hands, feet, forehead, and jaw started to grow out of control!
Froggy, 38, a radio personality on the syndicatedElvis Duran and the Morning Show, had these and many other symptoms. But, because the changes were so gradual, it wasn’t until ten years after the symptoms began that he sought a diagnosis.
In 2010, Froggy learned he had acromegaly, commonly known as pituitary adenoma. The name “acromegaly” comes from the Greek words for “extremities” (acro) and “great” (megaly). Acromegaly affects just 50 to 70 people per million.
In acromegaly, a benign tumor grows on a person’s pituitary gland, causing the gland to release excess growth hormone. In children, the condition is called gigantism and leads to a dramatic increase in height.
Froggy sat down with Healthline to talk about his strange experience.
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“I got married in 2002, and over a six-year period my hands grew so much I had to replace my wedding band four times. My shoe size changed from a ten to a 14. My speech had changed pretty drastically and also very slowly … This was due to my jaw growing. My lower jaw continued to grow when my upper jaw did not. At one point my upper jaw was sitting inside of my lower jaw,” said Froggy.
Froggy often felt tired, sweated profusely, had painful headaches, experienced problems with his vision, and would sometimes get dizzy and lose his balance.
在2009年感恩节附近，他最初归因于年龄较大后，Froggy在网上进行研究。Froggy说：“我在'手，脚，脸上都在成长。”
The word acromegaly appeared on the screen. “I had never seen that word before,” Froggy said. “Then I found acromegalyinfo.com. It was a one-stop place where I could read everything about it, understand what it was, and learn what the treatments were. There was a list of ten symptoms and I had nine of them.
“I saw that the initial deal was brain surgery, where they go through your nose because the disease is caused by a tumor that sits on your pituitary gland. I saw that was the fix and thought I didn’t want to do that. I closed the browser and walked away,” he said.
It wasn’t until 2010, when Froggy’s mom was watching an episode of “Jeopardy!”, that Froggy decided to be more proactive. The question was, “A disease that causes enlargement of feet, hands, forehead, and jaw,” and the answer was, “what is acromegaly?” Froggy’s mom asked if he had ever heard the word acromegaly.
“I played dumb and said no. I had never spoken to my mom about it, but she was able to tell what was going on. I knew I had to do something. Four days later I went to see my primary care physician in South Florida,” Froggy said.
Froggy’s primary care doctor didn’t think he had the disease, but she sent him for a blood test. “Everything came back perfect. She said, ‘We can send you to an endocrinologist who can suggest an IGF-1 test to test your insulin growth factor and your growth hormone.’ That number is supposed to be 200 to 300. Mine was over 1200,” said Froggy.
What was Froggy’s reaction when he heard the diagnosis of acromegaly?
“这不是恐惧;这是解脱,因为交易ing with all the changes — to finally know there is a problem and now we can fix it,” Froggy said. “It’s like if your car doesn’t work and every time you go to the mechanic it works fine, yet when you drive it down the road it breaks. The day it breaks at the mechanic, you’re happy. ‘Hey, finally, you can figure out what’s wrong.’”
Why hadn’t his family, his primary care doctor, or his coworkers ever expressed concern about his physical changes? Froggy said the changes were so gradual they went undetected. The only one who mentioned it was a former colleague whom he hadn’t seen for many years.
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Dr. Steven Roper at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida, gave Froggy his diagnosis and performed surgery to remove the pituitary tumor in June 2010. A year after his brain surgery, Froggy also had his jaw completely reconstructed.
Froggy现在比205岁，现在是163磅。“现在，脑外科手术后并因肢端肥大而发布了另外两项手术，我对自己做到了。我的技术和医生非常好。我现在感觉好多了。我的[生长激素]水平受到监测，” Froggy说。“我现在比28岁的38岁好。”
He added, ”I’m back to wearing the wedding ring my wife gave me the day I got married. I can’t remember the last time I had a headache. Now my shoe size is a 10 and a half. Last week I put a hat on that I hadn’t worn since ’09, and it fell down over my eyes.”
What makes Froggy so willing to talk openly his disease and the unusual symptoms he suffered?
“由于我正在参加广播节目，我觉得我不仅有能力，而且我应该尽可能多地提供帮助。我被诊断出的那天，我打电话给猫王，说我想在空中谈论这一点。他说，你确定吗？I said yes, because if I can help one person who is feeling the way I felt for the last ten years … but doesn’t know what to do and hears this, then they can go to see an endocrinologist or visit acromegalyinfo.com and get information.”
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Another of Froggy’s doctors, Dr. Laurence Kennedy, chairman of the endocrinology department at the Cleveland Clinic, told Healthline that acromegaly is easy to confirm in most cases by simply measuring levels of IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor-1), which are elevated in patients with the disease.
确认诊断后，通常的治疗方法是垂体手术。他说：“在少数患者中，如果垂体肿瘤在某个位置，我们建议对垂体的辐射。”
Surgery sometimes returns growth hormone and IGF-1 levels to normal, explained Kennedy. He added, “But often it doesn’t. It will greatly decrease the levels, but they may still be elevated.”
长期成功的关键是使IGF-1水平恢复正常范围。肯尼迪说，有些药物可以成功降低生长激素水平或阻止生长激素的作用。
如果该疾病发生在一个人完成青春期之前，则会导致高达9英尺高的高度。
“If the pituitary adenoma doesn’t develop until after the pubertal growth spurt is completed, then you can’t gain any more height. The growth excess goes into broadening the hands, feet, and other soft tissue changes,” Kennedy said.
这种疾病可以发生在任何种族，种族或性别的人中。大多数病例是在中年何时诊断出的，但肯尼迪表示可以在任何年龄发生。他说：“我见过儿童和青少年。”“我见过的最古老的是她80年代中期的一个女人。”
Finally, Kennedy said that growth hormone also affects the metabolism of blood sugar, proteins, and fat, and it also has an effect on blood pressure.
“People with this condition have a greatly increased risk of diabetes and hypertension, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death if the condition is not recognized and treated successfully,” Kennedy said.
